FIC: Must Hate You Always

Title: Must Hate You Always

Rating: PG

Star Wars - spoilers through The Last Jedi; Reylo; angst/fluff

474 words

I used to think space was too vast. I imagined that once I got off the stifling, blasted sand of Jakku and out into the universe of infinite solitude, I would come apart and be lost. That changed the moment I touched the nav board on the Millennium Falcon. Space is the inverse of solitude, and for a while I thought it would also be full of hope. I thought my pieces were beginning to slide into place. I would find my destiny and path. Struggle would not be a constant but a means to some sort of end.

Only now I've seen the end, and it's lonelier than ever.

Unless you fight by my side.

We are fueling the Falcon at a depot station orbiting the second moon of the Cadari system. I'm learning all these terms, all this cosmic geography. Which makes it easier, when I tip back the acceleration couch and drift toward dreams, to scan all that vast coolness.

To, as Luke said, reach out.

Are you there?

#

Rey?

I see you, but I can't speak. Mustn't. If I speak, my own body will betray me. I need to want you dead. I need to stoke the fury that keeps me going. And I know that if I answer you, if I let you know that I see, you will wash that fury away, cool it with the peace of your presence.

And this would end me.

Go away.

And come closer. Please.

Stop looking at me.

But come back for me. Don't give up on us.

We split a unified thing into pieces, and neither of us will ever be whole again, not while we're so far apart.

"Can you see me still?" you ask. "Or am I delusional?"

Your face is tight, on the verge of frustrated tears. You're lying down, stretched out and bundled for sleep. Your fists clutch a blanket awkwardly, too tight, like you aren't really sure what to do with its warmth. You're so used to being abandoned and abused that you don't even know how to handle comfort. Your knuckles are sharp and stark.

I know their angles, how they feel against my fingers.

Fused, our hands are pure power and purpose.

"I see you. I will hunt you," my voice says, but it breaks. "Kill you."

Your eyes close, and some of the tension leaves your face. Is that… a smile? It pierces me, soothing and deep and pervasive, and I want it gone and I want to hoard it forever.

"Not if I defeat you first."

I watch sleep take you, and I force my own silence in reply. I must. Because if I were to speak again, there's only one thing I could possibly say.